You Can Do Anything!
*Shortlisted for the Charles Tyrwhitt Children's Sports Book of the Year Award 2025*
This empowering non-fiction guide from two time gold-medal-winning Paralympian and Strictly Come Dancing star Jonnie Peacock will help young people find their happiness, chase their dreams and be unstoppable!
Whether it's sport, art, maths or just spending time with friends, this book will help young readers discover what it is they love and how they can harness this to achieve whatever they want in life.
Written in collaboration with children’s mental health expert Laura Earnshaw, this empowering book is packed full of Jonnie’s own stories alongside practical tips, tricks and journaling opportunities, with inspiring chapters on:
– Embracing uniqueness
– Finding what you love
– Making it happen
– Mind-body connection
– Stepping out of your comfort zone
– Bouncing back from adversity
– Working as a team
– Passing on your knowledge to help others
The world should be open to everyone, and everyone should be able to achieve their dreams if they have the right support. Jonnie's book takes young readers on a journey to get inspired, build confidence and learn that they can achieve anything, no matter their abilities.
Children will learn that happiness is something that can be actively worked on and found with hard work, a good mindset, plenty of patience and a whole heap of determination! All things Jonnie brings into his daily life and practice, so he can be the athlete he is today.
Complete with lively illustrations by Ashwin Chacko, this book will help readers embrace their passions, maximise their potential and be unstoppable!
Jonnie Peacock is a double Paralympic 100-metre sprint champion. He won gold and set a Paralympic record at the age of just 19 at the London 2012 Paralympic Games, going on to win gold again, and smash his own record at the Rio Paralympics in 2016. Since then he's gone on to win bronze in the T64 in Tokyo 2020, plus silver in the mixed relay at both Tokyo 2020 and Paris 2024. He was the first disabled contestant to compete on the main Strictly Come Dancing show and is passionate about challenging and changing other people’s perceptions around disability. When he's not running he loves love playing video games, eating peri-peri chicken and hanging out with his girlfriend, Sally, and his dogs, Bella and Luna.
Ashwin Chacko is a positively playful award-winning author, illustrator and motivational speaker. He specialises in joy-filled visual storytelling to bring happiness and encouragement to his work. His mission is to champion creativity and empower people to find their inner spark through his art, books, talks and workshops. He lives with his wife and three kids in Ireland. When he is not working he enjoys exploring the great outdoors with his kids, skateboarding, rock climbing and doing lots and lots of drawing.
Laura Earnshaw is the founder of an NHS-backed organisation called myHappymind. MyHappymind are experts in the science behind happiness and help hundreds of thousands of children in schools worldwide develop healthy habits so they can thrive! She lives with her husband, two kids and a lovely Maltipoo called Max in Cheshire. She is also the bestselling author of her own book, My Happy Mind, and sits on the board of the world’s leading mental health charity, The Mental Health Foundation. When she’s not working, she loves long country walks, scuba diving and travelling!